


Heading Home

by pearliegrimm



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Comedy, Dark Comedy, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, OT3, TIME FOR ME TO WRITE SEASON FOUR HIRE ME NETFLIX, sypha and trevor showing up late to alucards; damn bitch u live like this, u gave me bisexual alucard but at what Fucking Cost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:47:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23050441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearliegrimm/pseuds/pearliegrimm
Summary: The wind changes and blows the smell of death right into Trevor’s face. He suppresses a gag.“Something has happened with Alucard,” Sypha deduces, her hand still clasped over her nose.Trevor chances another look at the scantily-clad corpses fluttering about in the wind like a pair of scarecrows on Alucard’s doorstep.“...Dare I say you may be onto something, Sypha.”
Relationships: Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Sypha Belnades, Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Trevor Belmont, Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Trevor Belmont/Sypha Belnades, Trevor Belmont/Sypha Belnades
Comments: 246
Kudos: 1814





	1. Chapter 1

After the rude, cluster-fucked awakening that _was_ Lindenfeld, Trevor found himself steering the carriage in the direction of ~~Dracula~~ \- sorry, _Alucard’s_ castle without consciously comprehending what he was really doing. 

Perhaps the action was borne out of the need for something a little more solid in this shaky foundation of a situation- or perhaps it was something far more grievous. Perhaps it was an entire, rapid dissolution from the adventurous lifestyle that the pair of them had been living until recently... 

Either way, Sypha doesn’t comment on it until they’re only an hour or so away. 

Even then it is only in passing… As if this much was expected... inevitable, in a way. It leaves a bitter taste in Trevor's mouth. 

“It’s strange… Going back.” She admits softly, her expression is taut and entirely unhappy. The battle (if one could even call it that,) in town had left her far too quiet for Trevor’s liking.

It was a gruesome reminder that she wasn’t as used to the darker sides of the hunting lifestyle quite like Trevor was. No one had prepared her for what happened when everything went wrong despite them doing everything right… 

_Trevor desperately wanted for her to never have to get used to that feeling. The hollowness. The helplessness. It was a bastard to ignore._

“It feels as if we’ve been gone for years but barely left at the same time.”

Trevor hummed at the sentiment, the sound of the gravel crunching on the ground lulling his mind ever so slightly. “I know what you mean.” 

There’s something within the statement that makes him feel exhausted. It has his bones shuddering with exertion and his heart low and heavy in his chest. He was _so_ tired. They both were. It was the kind of tired that couldn’t be solved by sleep. It was the kind of tired that had you motionless for days on end, eyes fixed to a point on the ever-cracking ceiling. Strength-sapping and emotionally draining- it never seemed to let up no matter how long Trevor had dealt with it.

Perhaps _that_ was why they headed for Alucard’s castle now. For a break. A much-needed one at that. One they hadn’t deigned to take after slaying Dracula all those months ago... One that sounded better and better to Trevor every time he saw the grievous look in Sypha’s eyes- so akin to his own before he’d learned to keep it better hidden. 

A 'holiday'...Yeah... Maybe _that’s_ what they needed.

It’s a unanimous and bewilderingly silent agreement between the pair of them. For the first time since they’d met- they would stop moving. They would go back and visit Alucard. They would see what he was up to... 

They would determine what their next move was… _If there ever would be one again..._

“My, do you think ‘Lord Vampire Prick, the Second’ missed us?” Trevor asks Sypha in passing, nudging her elbow lightly with his arm. 

“I don’t think so. I’m sure he’s all too happy not having you drinking away at his wine supply right now,” Sypha admitted with a smile. “He probably missed _me,_ though _._ ” 

Trevor grunts noncommittally in reply. Probably. 

The sky is yellowing when they see the beginnings of the castle spire deep within the forest. They’d most likely make it by nightfall at this rate. It was good news, most assuredly- yet the thought of approaching the castle in the dark sent an embarrassing chill up Trevor’s spine. 

Sypha, on the other hand, visibly perked up at the sight, sitting with her shoulders straight as she peaked up over the branches for a glimpse at the building. “Nostalgic.” Is all she says, her skin painted an orange hue by the dying light of sunshine. It’s the first time that she’s looked like herself since they left Lindenfeld. 

_That, at the very least, was a good sign._

“You’re insane,” Trevor says simply. 

Sypha just smiles at him.

The word no longer had the same meaning. Not to them. Not anymore.

The first indicator that something is amiss comes a bit too late to the pair of highly trained monster slayers. It isn’t anything too obvious to a normal person- but it has both Sypha and Trevor exchanging mutual looks of concern. 

The forest was dead silent. 

It was like everything within the depths of the shrubs had grown too afraid to announce their presence. Their carriage wheels shuddered terribly over the under-developed ‘road’ (or lack thereof,) and still, nothing came to inspect. No rustling, no chirping, no nothing. It was as if the end of the world had happened while they weren’t looking and nothing existed aside from them. 

It wasn’t the most comforting of thoughts. Not with all the weird demon-y bullshit going on.

Trevor picks up the pace, keeping a tight hold on the handle of his whip the entire time.

_The next indicator is something a bit more obvious._

“What in the _sweet fuck-”_ Trevor squints his eyes against the dark to make sure he’s seeing things correctly. He wasn’t old enough to be losing his vision quite yet, was he?

Shit, how old was he again?

_When had he stopped counting?_

The pair disembark the carriage with great haste, rushing over to the castle that they’d invaded not three months ago. The nervous feeling is still there- but for an entirely different reason.

“My God…” Sypha says, a hand clasping over her nose to block the smell. Her chest heaves ever so slightly with the tell-tale sign of sickness. Trevor couldn’t blame her.

It was a _stench_ that he was all too familiar with. 

Rotting, _human_ flesh. 

...Fuck.

It’s a matching pair. A young man and woman in nightclothes, each on their own blunt stake buried in the ground. The blood around their mouths had long since dried and turned an ugly brown. The decaying process had most likely been sped up due to the growing swelter of summer- but they seemed to have been here for no more than a week or so. They’re from the east- that much Trevor can discern- but there is precious little else he’s able to glean from their appearances alone. 

The wind changes and blows the smell of _death_ right into Trevor’s face. He suppresses a gag.

“Something has happened with Alucard,” Sypha deduces, her hand still clasped over her nose.

Trevor chances another look at the scantily-clad corpses fluttering about in the wind like a pair of scarecrows on Alucard’s doorstep.

“...Dare I say you may be onto something, Sypha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alucard didnt come out to greet them bc he was busy burning those freaky fuckin dolls he made of them
> 
> [hmu on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pearliegrimm)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/pearIiegrimm)   
>  [aaaaand instagram ;)](https://www.instagram.com/pearliegrimm/)


	2. Chapter 2

Entering the castle was a new kind of horrible. Trevor and Sypha can’t help but dart their eyes about the looming, sprawling hallway in search of something that wants to consume them. The smell of the bodies wasn’t as prominent in here- but it still lingered about in the cobblestones. It smelled of decay- of a lacking of life and a permanent stasis.

Trevor swallows a guilty breath. Something was _brutally_ amiss here- and it hadn’t begun or ended with the honest-to-god corpses out the front.

Alucard hadn’t been ‘okay’ when they’d left. Alucard hadn’t been ‘okay’ since the day they’d met. The dhampir had told them to go- that he was fine on his own- but Trevor now thinks that that was a grave mistake on their part. 

Sypha bites back a wobbling frown. She takes a deep breath and cups her hands. “Alucard?!” She shouts his name into the abyss. The glowing candlelight did nothing to dispel the discontent within them. 

Her call is met with cloying silence.

Trevor swears under his breath. “Come on,” he says, grabbing her arm. “He’s bound to be around here somewhere.” 

The castle is the same as they’d left it.

 _Exactly_ the same.

The mess still remained untidied and frantic upon the carpeted hallways. Debris was still piled on the floor like mounds of autumn leaves. 

And worst of all…

“Oh, now this is just pure lunacy,” Trevor whines miserably, looking upon the large wine shelf by the kitchen- now half emptied onto the floor. The liquid and glass had melted into an unattractive, cluttered half-puddle on the hardwood- making the surface incredibly sticky to stand on. Trevor found it difficult to lift his boots and even more difficult not to snatch a few bottles for later. 

Sypha, light-footed as always, just quietly opened the door into the kitchen. Her eyes scanned her surroundings with typical fox-like cunning. 

That’s where they find him.

He has his back to them, facing the window overlooking the Belmont hold. He’s motionless, like a doll- completely and utterly inhuman-like. 

Trevor had never found the back of a head so jarring. 

He either doesn’t hear them come in or is choosing to ignore the sound because he doesn’t turn. He just continues to not face the pair.

“Alucard?” Sypha says quietly, her voice is barely above a whisper. She moves to approach him but Trevor puts a hand out to stop her.

“Allow me.” He mouths. 

Sypha looks as if she wants to protest but decides it isn’t worth the fight. She was obviously more tired than Trevor originally thought. She’d barely even scowled at him. 

With mild hesitance, Trevor steps toward Alucard. Moving closer and closer until he’s finally facing the other. 

Alucard’s eyes and mouth are closed- with his hair hanging limply in strands on either side of his face...

Now, it sounded superficial but Trevor had never seen Alucard’s golden halo of locks as anything other than annoyingly _luminous_ so this was but another nail in the coffin of _discord_ within this situation. 

_Was he asleep? Was he dead? Was he under some kind of spell?_

Trevor leans forward to inspect the man.

It seemed that he now had some kind of awful scarring around all of his ligaments. 

_Those_ definitely hadn’t been there before... Trevor would have recalled it.

The red wound snakes around his body like a… well, _a snake_ and didn’t look to be healing any time soon. It was angry and prominent- much like the scar Alucard already had on his chest from his father. 

Poor bastard.

Trevor clicked his tongue. 

They needed to figure out what kind of state Alucard was in- and they needed to promptly.

He cracked his fingers. 

Well, here went nothing... 

Trevor meets Alucard’s unopened eyes and begins to speak- closing in on his face. “Aluca-”

He’s unable to get the rest of his name out before he’s pressed up against the wall. 

It’s awfully reminiscent of their first meeting. This hostility. Alucard moves like a flash, darting forward toward Trevor before the hunter could even begin to anticipate it. He can hear Sypha make an exclamation of confused shock from behind him. 

Alucard has him against the bricks- holding him up as if he weighed next to nothing. There’s a sheen over the half-vampire’s eyes as they glow. They’re clouded like he’s not fully in control of his actions. Trevor’s worldly enough to know that this was no curse, though. 

This was something purely mental. 

Alucard hisses, baring his teeth at Trevor. 

“Calm down, you cockwart.” Trevor grits, the pressure of Alucard’s hands-on him making it uncomfortable to breathe. “It’s just us.” He adds, a little softer this time- looking at the fresh wounds surrounding the other’s body. 

A pause.

It’s like Alucard is seeing him for the first time. His eyes widen and the fog within them dissipates. 

He unceremoniously drops Trevor on the ground, taking a step back from the hunter. His mouth quivers as if he’s about to stutter out an apology before his expression hardens and he promptly closes it again. 

“What is it that you’re doing here?” Is what comes out instead. His voice is more gravelly than before- like he hasn’t made use of it in a while. 

“We wanted to pay you a visit,” Sypha said carefully, stepping into the equation like she was attempting to corner an injured doe. “-See what you were up to.”

Trevor, however, had a bit of a different approach. He returns to his feet, wincing. “Saw your little ornaments out the front. Very charming.” 

Alucard’s frown deepened at that. Trevor sees his fists clench. “I am ‘up to’ the very same thing that I was ‘up to’ when you first departed.” He says- his tone bitter. 

Trevor scoffs, gesturing dramatically toward the general vicinity of the castle entrance. “I don’t think I believe you.” 

“And I don’t think I requested your input, Belmont.” 

A silence passes between the trio. There was an obvious rift between them all now. Alucard was cold and stand-offish at the best of times- but this was an entirely new level. 

“You’ve seen me. Now you can leave.” He says, his mouth still pulled into an ugly scowl. He isn’t meeting their eyes. 

“I don’t think so,” Sypha returned, her tenacious tone sending a bout of relief through Trevor. He hated that he’d missed it that much. Especially since it caused him so much fucking trouble.

She steps closer to him now, her voice softening. “What happened here, Alucard?” 

Alucard’s facade shakes, but his sneer remains true. “Nothing of import.”

“Bull fucking shit. There are two people out the front of your house with _stakes_ through them.” 

Alucard huffs, “semantics.” 

“Alucard, please.” Sypha says, “the castle is still in shambles. The forest is completely desolate. You’re a _mess..._ Just let us understand.” There’s worry in her voice now- she was anxious. It’s obvious in the way her eyebrows furrow- the way her frown twitches. 

“You owe us an explanation,” Trevor adds, crossing his arms. “And it better be a bloody fucking good one.” 

Alucard’s eyes glow with anger over that. “I don’t owe you _anything.”_ He growls, his teeth shining sharp in the candlelight. His expression is wounded. _“You left.”_

Trevor and Sypha spare each other a glance. 

_...Oh._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alucard is such a dramatic bitch god i love him so much
> 
> [hmu on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pearliegrimm)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/pearIiegrimm)   
>  [aaaaand instagram ;)](https://www.instagram.com/pearliegrimm/)


	3. Chapter 3

The trio are all stood in a circle in the castle’s kitchen, staring at one another in strained, uncomfortable silence. 

Trevor found it so horribly awkward that he almost wished Dracula was back in here just to make things _less_ tense. 

Belmonts were naturally predisposed to be emotionally constipated- and the hunter was certainly no glaring exception to that rule. He was _really_ bad with feelings.

The first time he and Sypha had kissed he had to go stab something to feel normal again.

...So it would suffice to say that this _thing_ with Alucard wasn’t exactly Trevor’s pint of ale.

 _...But he was_ genuinely, _surprisingly_ concerned for his friend. 

_...Friend?_

Ugh.

When had he even started considering Alucard his friend? 

-Trevor had to assume it was before he saw those two humans _shish kebabbed_ outside his doorstep.

Sypha’s expression twisted into one that mirrored the inner machinations of Trevor’s mind. She looked guilty- yet also _understanding._

Trevor honestly didn’t know how she did that with her face. All the emoting. It probably had something to do with the fact that she had regular contact with nurturing humans during the formative years of her life- or whatever. 

He scowled.

Ugh. 

This was what happened when the topic of _feelings_ came up. 

_Trevor needed a drink._

“Alucard,” Sypha, of course, is the one that breaks the silence, saying the name that felt like it had been uttered at least a thousand times just this evening. “We-” she looked toward Trevor, “we thought it would be better if you-”

Alucard just glared at her, “If I what? Sat in my dead father’s castle, whom of which I’d just killed, and wallowed in grief by myself?” He clicked his tongue, “quite the plan.” 

“Well when you put it like that, you make it sound like _we're_ the _assholes_ ,” Trevor replied.

“You may be less stupid than you look, Belmont.” 

Trevor furrowed his eyebrows at him, “you _told_ us to go. You gave us your word that you would be fine. Don’t pin _all_ of this on us.” 

“Trevor.” Sypha admonished, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Alucard eyes them with piercing intensity. He says nothing about the casual touching- he just watches. “It is all in the past, anyhow. I am quite fine now. You needn’t bother to check up on me…” He strides about the kitchen, looking away from them. “I know how much you both love to wade in the swathes of humanity and I would be loathe to keep you.”

_‘Wade in the swathes of…’_

God, he even fucking sounded like Dracula. Pretentious bastard. Trevor gritted his teeth.

_Why was giving someone the benefit of the doubt so damn hard?_

“Alucard, you _are_ humanity. You’re just as human as you are vampire.” Sypha said calculatingly, she moved toward him now. “You’re more alive than most of the people out there.” 

Trevor scoffed, “especially the ones _directly_ out there.” He juts a finger toward the gruesome courtyard they’d just walked through. “Those guys _definitely_ aren’t alive.”

Sypha whips her head around to glare him into silence. “You aren’t helping,” she mouthed. 

Trevor just shrugged. 

“We’re staying here, Alucard,” Sypha tols him. It isn’t a request. It’s a statement. 

Alucard scowled, “what happened to exploring the world? Did it chew you up and spit you out already?” He turns fully to Sypha now, levelling his gaze toward her like a wolf surveying its prey. “I suppose you’ve realised now that just because you won the first battle doesn’t mean you’ll win the war.”

Trevor knew exactly what Alucard was doing. It was something he himself did as well. The dhampir was riling them up to get them to lash out. He wanted to distract them from _his_ own undoings by highlighting their shameful own. 

“They weren’t thankful for your efforts, were they? You gave them your knowledge and power and, in turn, they gave you another notch on your belt of nightmares to lay awake thinking about.” 

The only difference between them was that Trevor doesn’t entirely think Alucard is talking about _just_ them now. He was being purposefully vague- and not just because he was making assumptions. 

He was surreptitiously speaking of the events that had occurred during their absence. 

Whether he was aware of it or not, though- was another story entirely. 

Sypha looks troubled now, her comforting presence had fizzled away into obscurity.

For once she looks unsure. 

“Why even bother’ is what you’re thinking, right Sypha? And you’re correct. You shouldn’t bother... Humanity is wicked and cruel and my father was _right.”_

The final sentence wasn’t so much the straw that broke the camel’s back as it was the gun that shot it in the face.

Trevor, as per usual, acts on his instincts rather than logic.

He thinks he’s going in for a punch (which was his usual move,) but both his arms reach out at the same time.

He moves without reckoning- without reasoning- and he doesn’t think to cease. 

He only truly realises what’s going on when he sees that he, Trevor Belmont, was currently hugging Alucard- the mother fucking son of Dracula. 

Uh.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. He’d wanted to wail on the bastard for talking such shit. What was going on?

What the fuck?

The noises of great surprise coming from the other two in the room were evidence enough that they were equally as confused. 

Alucard doesn’t break away though.

He stops speaking and moving altogether.

It’s as if he’s in some kind of odd stasis- neither accepting nor rejecting the embrace. 

“Humanity is shit.” Trevor says, his voice gruff. Sypha shoots him a look of _‘what the fuck are you doing?’_ as if _he_ even fucking knows. “That much I can agree with… But Dracula wasn’t right. He was so far left of right that he sounded mad.” 

Trevor doesn’t know how long Alucard and him have been weirdly hugging in the middle of the kitchen. He thinks it’s somewhere between five seconds and five-hundred years. 

“These are confusing times. People are afraid and when people are afraid they’re _imbeciles."_ Trevor breaks away from Alucard to slap him on the shoulder. “But we’re Belmont and Belnades. And we’re not afraid of _shit._ So why don’t you just _tell us_ what happened so we can clean up your mess _again._ ” There’s something annoyingly fond about Trevor’s tone that he himself can’t fully distinguish. 

Alucard remained silent. 

Trevor rolls his eyes at Sypha, “we _are_ sorry for leaving you here. I see now that that was a touch fucked up.” 

“More than a touch,” Alucard replied quietly. He doesn’t look as wounded as before- not as angry. He turns to Sypha. “I’m… sorry for saying those things to you… To both of you.” He glances back at Trevor. “Please let me… Sleep on the notion.” 

Sypha perks up. “So we can stay?” 

Alucard sighed, “For now.” 

_And that was good enough._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [hmu on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pearliegrimm)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/pearIiegrimm)   
>  [aaaaand instagram ;)](https://www.instagram.com/pearliegrimm/)


	4. Chapter 4

Sleeping in Dracula’s castle was, quite expectedly, jarring. 

Trevor can’t help but look up at the stony ceiling and wonder what kind of horrific shit went on within these elegantly constructed walls. He wanted to know who slept here before them- if they were still alive… If they’d ever even _been_ alive... 

_What torturous end had the souls in these hallways met? Had they even made it this far? Was he disrespecting his ancestors by laying here, complicit in this castle of nightmares?_

The endless questions left him tossing and turning- just like many other nights. This time, though, he couldn’t render them irrational. Not here. 

Sypha, on the other hand, slept like the dead. (No pun intended.) The day had been long and tumultuous and she was quite obviously _exhausted._

-And when Sypha was exhausted, _she snored._

For someone so small in stature, Trevor had assumed that the noises she made whilst asleep would mirror this factor. Unfortunately, however- just like every other aspect of Sypha- she was larger than life and twice as loud. 

Trevor can’t recall how long he’s been listlessly staring up at the roof before he just gives up altogether. It’s still dark out- so it couldn’t have been the entirety of the night. But it certainly felt like a fair chunk of it.

Against his better judgement, Trevor decides to traverse the obviously haunted vampire castle in his sleep clothes for no other reason than that he was worried that Sypha would swallow him whole with her raucous snores. 

...Also he was bored.

Perhaps Alucard was awake, Trevor muses- entirely certain that the dhampir would _love_ to provide some _riveting_ conversation in the state he was currently in. 

_Miserable bastard..._

It was like he’d been returned to that coffin in the catacombs under Gresit. Back then he seemed angry and suspicious of everyone that came his way. His trust in humanity had been shattered. He knew what had to be done- but didn’t have the heart to do it alone. 

...And that was when humans had burned his mother at the stake and forced his hand into killing his own father so something _big_ must have happened for him to return to _that_ state.

Trevor thinks back to the two corpses staked outside the castle. He thinks back to their clothing- or lack thereof. 

_Had they slept here in this castle? Had they stared up at the stone ceilings wondering the same thing as Trevor had? Or was it instead a lack of thinking that led to their demise?_

He shakes off the thought and tells himself that the chill in his spine is just the icy flooring on his bare feet.

Once more, he finds himself moving back toward the kitchen area. The wine was enticing him the older the night grew and he certainly wasn’t going to deny himself some perfectly good, free booze.

The candlelight flickered weakly in the breeze from the gaps in the doorways, darting the shadows about like they were alive. It does nothing to settle Trevor’s unease.

What does though, is the dozen perfectly intact bottles of wine lying atop the shelf just outside the kitchen. 

Trevor licks his lips in anticipation, his hands reaching out for the bottle nearest to him-

“I thought you favoured ale more than wine, Belmont.” 

He nearly jumps out of his skin.

Alucard stands in the doorway of the kitchen, watching him with those judgemental gold eyes of his.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Trevor says, brushing off his fear with a casual huff. He hated the idea of Alucard scaring him. _Loathed it,_ in fact. 

...But this wasn’t even the first time.

When Alucard had overpowered him in the catacombs, his teeth mere inches from his neck- he’d been scared then too. 

He hadn’t cared about dying, though. No, it was something different to that. Something Trevor couldn’t explain.

The hunter fixes his jaw, sizing up Alucard again. “What are you doing down here?” The other wasn’t in his sleep clothes. In fact, he was wearing the exact same thing he’d been wearing hours ago when they’d found him. 

_...Had Alucard… Been sleeping in there?_

_Why wasn’t he in his bedroom?_

Surely a pillowy mattress was far more comfortable than an old wooden chair. Sure, Trevor had no doubts that Dracula ascertained that it was the finest chair in all of Wallachia but it still couldn’t hold a candle to an actual bed. 

And Trevour would know.

“This is my castle, Belmont. I can do as I please.” 

Trevor clicks his tongue, “enough with that shit, Alucard.” He scratched the back of his head, sheepish, “Sypha is really worried about you. She wants to help out as best she can…”

“I can assure you that I am well aware of that, Belmont.” 

“Yeah, well,” Trevor grimaces, “she’s had a… rough couple of days. So, I don’t know, pretend to be soothed by her presence or some shit when she comes down for breakfast.”

Alucard looked at him with just the strangest scraping of affection. The candle light flickered once more and then the warmth is gone again. “I do not need to pretend. I am quite fond of her…” He stares over at Trevor, “and it seems that you are too.” His eyes almost glow in the dark. Luminous and feline-esque in a way that Trevor can only assume hailed from the supernatural side of his lineage. “I’ve never seen you put such care into your own actions before.”

Trevor grows flustered, entirely unhappy over his own transparency. “...Is this what we’re doing now, Alucard? Talking about women?”

Alucard looks at the wine lying innocently on his shelf. “Would you prefer to talk about whatever brought you back here in the first place?”

At this angle Trevor can see just how _defeated the_ other looks. It was like everything had been sapped out of him. 

Behind that unhappy frown of his was the man that had laughed with him and Sypha under the light of a campfire. He just needed to be broken out of his tomb all over again.

 _“Fuck_ no.” 

“...My sentiments exactly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tune in 4 next chapter where trevor and alucard ignore their problems and get fucking sloshed
> 
> [hmu on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pearliegrimm)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/pearIiegrimm)   
>  [aaaaand instagram ;)](https://www.instagram.com/pearliegrimm/)


	5. Chapter 5

The pair end up taking a number of wine bottles into one of the castle’s several intricate parlour rooms. They talk a lot- but the subject matter is never really anything important. A majority of their conversation is spent on an argument about whether or not having a box of monster penises in a locked cabinet is weird or just good foresight in case of an emergency. 

More than anything though, they just drink. They drink until the sun begins to rise with the foreboding streaks of day. They drink until everything is blissfully blurry and Trevor can’t even remember what he’d been staring up at the ceiling for all those hours ago.

“This wine…” Trevor narrowed his eyes at the bottle (he’d given up pouring it into a glass at this point and had just begun swigging it.) “It is some potent shit.” 

“S’not,” Alucard replied grouchily from the other lounge, slouched against the headrest. “You’re just accustomed to downing watery piss at any shit-stained pub you come across.”

When Alucard was drunk, he didn’t lose that formal lilt in his voice. In fact, it grew more pronounced and all the more ridiculous- especially when he slurred his words.

Trevor found it very funny. 

“My fucking apologies.” The hunter snorted, tilting further over to the side of the chair’s quilted arm. He could say what he wanted about Dracula- but the fucker knew how to pick a bloody good piece of furniture... 

...As Trevor moved closer to the ground level he couldn’t help but find something peculiar stashed away along with a pile of forgotten books. 

The familiar colour pallet and the general aura of weirdness struck him with morbid curiosity.

“...The shit is that?” 

“God, what?” Alucard snapped, his mouth curled into a comical snarl. He followed Trevor's gaze, turning around in his seat. He only just barely manages not to spill alcohol all over his father’s ornate rug.

It is then that he sees the object of Trevor’s confusion. 

“Ah.” 

Trevor slumps forward, crawling on all fours toward the strange abnormalities. He didn’t quite trust his legs right now to take him there themselves. 

He must be drunker than he thought, though, because soon enough he pulls two creepy doll replicas of him and, he presumes, Sypha out of the little pile of junk. 

“What the fuck are  _ these,  _ Alucard _?”  _

Alucard looked at them with incomprehensible emotion. “These…” He began, “Are my  _ friends.”  _ Oh,  _ he’s _ drunker than Trevor thought. 

“What-”

He snatched the pair out of Trevor’s hands- the momentum nearly sending him tumbling out of his chair.

Trevor just watches on in building drunken bewilderment. 

“I was so lonely, you know,” Alucard mumbles, his eyes were heavily lidded now. It made the golden sheen of his lashes all the more beautifully prominent to Trevor. 

Ugh… What? 

Trevor shakes the thought out of his head. He was wasted.

“I missed the two of you, for some reason.” Alucard wasn’t looking at Trevor- instead, he was talking to the two dolls on his lap.

_ You know, something that a rightfully sane person would do. _

“I thought they would be a replacement for you both. Something to ease my isolation” 

Oh.

Alucard hasn’t met his eyes- it’s like Trevor is no longer in the room with him. He speaks his mind out loud to these pieces of cloth... And Trevor has a sneaking suspicion that he isn’t fully talking  _ about  _ the dolls right now. 

_ His mind flits back to the bodies on stakes outside.  _

“They were kind and humorous and beautiful... So eager to learn from me despite my relation to Dracula.” 

Trevor just listened to him in silence. His mind felt too fuzzy to properly process the information in any helpful way. He just knew it was important. 

“I gave them  _ everything...  _ And what did they give me?” Alucard lies back, holding his two ‘friends’ up in the air. “Dozens of scars and two new ornaments out the front of my dead father’s castle.” 

Silence passed through the room like a chilled breeze from the arctic.

Trevor wouldn’t really know how to face this situation even if he  _ was _ sober. Him being drunk just made this  _ thing _ even more of a weird shitshow. His naturally loosened tongue was practically detached from him at this point. “That’s… Fucked up.” He slurred, clambering up the edge of the lounge to level with Alucard. He kneels on the floor in front of him. “We were lonely too, you know.” He admits, blinking. 

Alucard just snorted at him, “you cannot be alone as two.” 

“Sure you fuckin’ can.” Trevor flicked Alucard’s nose. “Sypha and I…” He slumps his posture ever so slightly- the straightness of his back being hard to maintain in this state. “There feels like something is missing between us.” 

Alucard raised his eyebrows in genuine surprise, “you wish to cut ties with her?” 

“No!” Trevor exclaimed, “it’s like…” His drunk mind was trying it’s absolute best to articulate a half-decent analogy. “It’s like… We have a few screws loose.” 

Alucard just stares at him, “...That’s for certain.”

“Fuck off.” 

Trevor could feel his mind growing blurrier by the moment. He swayed side to side- as if he were on a great vessel in the sea. 

“It’s like… we’re a…” Scrambling, his eyes wander over to where the dhampir’s ‘companions’ lay on his lap. “A doll!” He exclaims. The epiphany shooting through him like a dart of fire. “We’re all parts of a doll!” 

He snatches ‘Sypha’ out of Alucard’s hands despite his protests. 

“The most important parts of a doll are the stuffing, the stitching and the cloth, yes?” 

Alucard looks at him like he would a madman. 

Luckily, Trevor is used to that. 

“Well, Sypha-” He shakes the doll in his hands, “-Is the stitching because she keeps us together and shit. She binds us so we don’t fall apart. I-” Trevor gestures to himself. “...Yeah-  _ I _ am the cloth that covers us. A hard exterior to keeps the stitching from unravelling and the stuffing from falling out.” 

“I think you’re giving yourself too much credit there, Belmont.”    
“Shut your mouth. Otherwise, I’m not going to fucking say what you are.” 

“Oh, my, I  _ wonder-” _

“You!” Trevor declares, “are the stuffing that makes us whole. Without you, we’re just a poorly sewn, person-shaped sack with no opening.” Trevor screws his nose up at the final sentence.  _ That  _ could have sounded better. “There cannot be one without the other two. That’s what I think we realised when we left.” 

Trevor’s vision continues to grow blurry- he can barely see Alucard right in front of him. He doesn’t have long before passing out. This much he knows. 

He thinks he hears Alucard say something to him. Something important. But he cannot for the life of him figure out  _ what  _ it was.

In the end, he hits the ground- unknowing and unaware of the words Alucard told him at the end of their rendezvous. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [hmu on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pearliegrimm)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/pearIiegrimm)   
>  [aaaaand instagram ;)](https://www.instagram.com/pearliegrimm/)


	6. Chapter 6

Sypha wakes up alone.

It’s something she’s no longer accustomed to. She was loath to admit that she quite missed the warmth that Trevor always seemed to emanate from his side of the bed. 

He’d always sardonically told her that it was due to the hateful fire burning within him but Sypha knew that it was actually because he was a glorified teddy bear with a whip and substance abuse problems. 

It was extremely rare that he was up before her. Trevor was a perpetually late riser. All those years of fighting (or drinking,) through the night had fucked with his body clock to an extreme case. He rarely woke before noon- unless prodded at with a stick. 

Sypha usually found it irritating- but right now she was unhappy to find that waking up alone was not nearly as pleasant as waking up next to someone else, (usually on the borderline of comatose.) 

Especially once you’d gotten used to it.

Sypha blinked away the sleep in her eyes that still remained from the night. 

The previous evening had blessed her with dreamless slumber. It was something she’d only grown grateful for over the past few days.

She loathed closing her eyes and seeing Lindenfeld. She loathed the phantom sounds of screams ringing in her ears. 

But most of all she loathed the heaviness in her heart. They’d done everything they could have done and it still hadn’t been fruitful.

It was infuriating. Soul-crushing. It felt like there was a constant weight on her chest- pushing her further and further down into the abyss of her own mind. It was all-encompassing and unrelenting. Constant and prying- 

She snaps herself out of her haze. 

That was the past. 

The very recent past- but still the past.

She had more prominent,  _ current _ problems to deal with.

Yes, two big problems in the shape of men. 

Naturally. 

_ That  _ was something that could be dealt with. 

Sypha rather quickly finds her two vices piled on top of one another in the parlour room a few paces from the kitchen. They’re both passed out, clutching emptied wine bottles- so deeply unconscious that they looked dead. 

She can glean a story from the circumstances before her. A theory- a probability about what exactly had happened. It didn’t exactly take a genius, (even if she was one.) 

Her little probabilities and theories would have to stay that way for a while too- especially after she killed both of them. 

She really  _ hated  _ being left out.

With bordering irritation, Sypha retrieves a pitcher of water from the nearby stream- thanking her good luck that the morning was still fresh enough that it ran icy cold within it. 

This would be good.

  
  


Trevor awakens to a tidal wave of freezing cold water on his face.

It’s not the first time such a thing had happened. Innkeepers typically didn’t take kindly to his sleeping in their stables, after all.

This, however, felt a little more personal.

“Good morning boys.” Sypha’s accented cadence wrung out like a screeching bird in the early quiet. 

Trevor groans, squinting his eyes open to find the woman standing over both him and Alucard with an empty jug. She looked far too smug for someone so lightweight and throwable. 

Just as Trevor was debating punting his lover out of the window- he looks over at his drinking partner to find that Alucard has seized up like an angry cat- hissing and sputtering with incredulity over the rude awakening. 

“Did you have fun without me?” 

Trevor just  _ knows  _ that Sypha is being pitchy and loud  _ on purpose.  _ She was making the pair of them pay. 

“We weren’t doing anything.” Trevor mumbles, his voice bordering on unintelligible. 

“You were bonding without me.” She declared, pouting. 

“We were _ drinking  _ without you.” Trevor corrected, blinking at the brightness. Ugh. This room looked  _ way  _ too normal in the daylight. It almost didn’t look like Dracula’s castle at all. “Besides, you were asleep. Snoring your ass off, mind you.”

Sypha huffs. 

“Pardon the intrusion on this lover’s quarrel.” Alucard interrupted- scowling. He folds his wet hair out of his eyes and cringes at the  _ thwack  _ sound that it makes on the back of his nape. “You two have been here for…” He blinks, “less than a day- and already you’ve broken into my home, raided my wine supply, and dumped a pitcher of water on to my head.” 

Sypha looks only mildly guilty. “You weren’t answering…” 

Trevor nods in disgruntled agreement. “Yeah, and you drunk just as much as I did.” 

Alucard raises an eyebrow, “and the water?”

Trevor looks toward Sypha now too- obviously curious toward her reasoning. She definitely wasn’t going to get any back up on that front. The madwoman...

Sypha puffs out her cheeks in a rare juvenile display of haughtiness. “Would you have preferred a good morning kiss?” 

All is silent. Alucard goes red.

Trevor just looks at him and laughs. “Ha! You’re sweet on Sypha…” He points at Alucard- grimacing over how his  _ everything  _ hurt any time he so much as moved. Whatever. Totally worth it. “How mortifying.” 

Sypha crosses her arms. Clearly unenthused by that little spackling of commentary. “Trevor, you cried after we had sex for the first time.”

Aaaaand now they both looked horrified.

Mission accomplished.

Sypha feels a smile itch at her face. “Get changed and come into the kitchen. I’ll make us some breakfast.” 

She leaves without letting the pair reply. 

“...Did you really cry, Belmont?”

“Shut the fuck up. My nose was sniffling because I’d just fallen ill from the cold.”

“How cute.” 

“Kill me now.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i tried to reference lisa and draculas first meeting ohohohh? did you notice?
> 
> [hmu on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pearliegrimm)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/pearIiegrimm)   
>  [aaaaand instagram ;)](https://www.instagram.com/pearliegrimm/)


	7. Chapter 7

Breakfast is an interesting affair.

Alucard is no longer accustomed to sharing meals with anyone aside from himself. He counts himself dreadfully lucky that he previously hadn’t forgone his table manners. 

Nevertheless, the event is a strange one. Especially given the circumstances of their reunion  _ and _ this morning’s events.

Alucard cannot begin to wrangle his feelings into coherency. 

He had done his best to be the worst. He pushed Trevor and Sypha away with his cold attitude and harsh words- 

And still, they were here, in front of him, eating all of his bread. 

Trevor always tended to eat like the meal in front of him would be his last. He ate like it was a competition.

He ate like he was dreadfully hungover- and it was because he was. 

He was easily finished before the other two and, instead of being a cordial guest and friend- he decided to excuse himself with a grumble and a yawn- opting to catch up on the sleep he’d so fitfully missed the night previous. 

Perhaps this would be the driving point that finally turned the Belmont fully nocturnal.

...Who was the vampire now? 

This leaves Alucard and Sypha alone with one another for the first time since they’d reunited. 

Sypha and he had always shared an amicable intellectual rapport with one another- one borne out of their mutual interest in forgotten histories and old stories. If Trevor was the chaos- Sypha was the reason. She always did her best to see things logically and was never one to hold grudges… for too long.

Nevertheless, Alucard felt like another apology was in order.   
“I… I am sorry for the way I spoke to you yesterday evening. I know saying that I was not truly acting as myself is a cowardly excuse but I can assure you of my honesty.” He looks out the window- the very same one he’d been staring at day in and day out for what felt like an eternity. “It has been a… difficult few months.” 

Sypha drained the remnants of her cup before lightly placing it down onto the table. “No. You were right.” She tells him, “It was rude of us to ask you to detail every facet of your life that we both elected to miss. Especially when we so selfishly left you in your time of grieving-”   
Alucard makes a move to interrupt but is promptly hushed by the speaker once more.

“-You were right about that as well. Even  _ Trevor  _ agrees.” Sypha sighs, grabbing the pitcher of water and pouring herself another drink. She wasn’t an alcoholic- but at that moment she sincerely looked the part. “We had no right demanding a story from you without giving our own first.”

Bless Sypha, She was like a breath of fresh air in comparison to Belmont’s sledgehammer approach of getting to the point. They were both dry and honest- but in completely different ways. Sypha was compassionate and spoke her feelings out loud. Though she was never one to sugarcoat her words- she always knew the right thing to say…

Meanwhile, Trevor would all but run screaming from the room the moment emotions were brought up… 

They spoke different gradients of honesty- no more candour than the other. 

It was just another factor into why they made such a strange but oddly  _ whole  _ pair. 

...And a pair never needed a third. 

Alucard had known that for a very long time. Trevor’s drunken words still rattled about in his brain- but they did nothing to lessen that feeling of discontent. All they did was give him a headache. 

...Or maybe that was just the wine. 

Alucard didn’t know what to make of this strange sense of longing. He now knew that it stemmed from loneliness. He wasn’t daft enough to refute that anymore. But there was something else too. Another aspect. Something that he’d repressed long before Sumi and Taka had bled through his life. Something to do with Sypha and, unfortunately, Trevor as well. 

Seeing the two of them again hadn’t been good for his soul. He’d felt resolute in his belief that Dracula had been right about humanity- but now here he was again. Confused. Hurt. Bewildered. Angry. Incredulous. 

These two humans had rooted themselves into his head and changed everything he believed  _ yet again.  _

Destiny truly was a smug, unrelenting bitch. 

But he wasn’t quite ready to embrace it yet. 

* * *

Sypha spoke of a great many things. Out of the three of them, she’d always had a certain way with words. It made sense- she was a fucking speaker. 

She told Alucard  _ everything  _ about what she and Trevor had been up to since they’d left. 

Though Alucard felt a bitter feeling settling in his stomach at the thought of being so horribly excluded- he knew now that perhaps it would have been better if all three of them had just remained together in this castle after all. 

Trevor and Sypha’s ventures into the old towns across Wallachia had started off fun. Akin to their romantic relationship, it was new and exciting- 

But it had all soured quicker than cow’s milk on a hot summer’s day.

The longer that Alucard listened the more he realised that he didn’t wish he was there beside them. 

Rather, he wished that the two of them had been here with him instead.

Sypha’s expression is closed off as she speaks- like she’s relaying an ancient story that had been passed down to her. Alucard finds her coping mechanism intriguing. 

“...We just knew we had to come back here.” Sypha finishes with a shuddering sigh. “There was nowhere else to go.” 

Alucard tilts his head, “I was a last resort, then?” It’s only after it comes out of his mouth that he realises that it’s far more teasing than spiteful. His heart is still wounded from the events that led up to today- but now, he thinks, there’s a chance he could heal. 

He would need some help though.

“No!” Sypha exclaims, waving her hands in a frantic motion. 

“It is fine.” Alucard says, finding that the words weren’t quite as false as they once were. 

It wasn’t fine  _ now-  _ but it would be. He wasn’t fine now… But- but he would be.

Maybe.

It seemed that the three of them couldn’t separate from one another without something terrible happening. 

And at this hungover, lonely-  _ vulnerable  _ point in his life... Alucard  _ was  _ fine with that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [hmu on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pearliegrimm)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/pearIiegrimm)   
>  [aaaaand instagram ;)](https://www.instagram.com/pearliegrimm/)


	8. Chapter 8

Sleep always seemed to evade Alucard. 

Even before his recent… Troublesome circumstances- the activity had never been one he particularly looked forward to. 

It was a necessity- not an indulgence. 

As a child, he’d dreaded nightfall. He vehemently hated the thought of his parents leaving him alone as the darkness fell over the castle. He was afraid of the unknown- he was afraid of the thoughts ticking about in his head. 

As he grew, the thoughts only seemed to develop more weight to them. He was no longer afraid of a what-if. He was afraid of a  _ when.  _

_ When would the end times come to fruition? There were so many instances that they could have happened- but hadn’t. Was this a final act of graciousness from the surveyor above- or were they just toying with all of humanity one last time?  _

_ That noise outside? Was that the start of it all?  _

_...Or was it just his mind playing tricks on him?  _

_ On the darkest of nights- he swears he sees Sumi and Taka standing over his bedside once more. Not as they were on that fateful night, captivating and effervescent- but as they are now; bloodied and mangled- rotting and pale- with wooden stakes ripping through their throats.  _

_ They stare at him with their bird-eaten eyes and implore him to invite them into his bed all over again...  _

_ “Alucard?”  _

_ He hates to look at them- but he hates, even more, to look away.  _

_ “Alucard?”  _

_ He’d trusted them- he’d given them everything- _

“Alucard!” 

Alucard feels his eyes crack open- filling his senses with bright, blinding sunlight. 

Ugh. 

This was not so much a reprieve as it was a new kind of bad. 

He feels the familiar jut of a wooden chair digging into his back and comes to some semblance of a conclusion. 

He’d fallen asleep in the kitchen  _ again.  _

After his talk with Sypha- he’d thought that there would be a chance of a dreamless slumber for once. He’d felt he was the most at ease that he’d been in quite a while...

Alas, he was incorrect. 

His dreams were the same as they always were- and always would be. 

Refocusing his vision, Alucard once more catches a glimpse of Trevor and Sypha and finds himself experiencing an awful sense of deja vu. 

There’s something different about their expressions this time, though. They seemed more… familiar- more intimate. 

Alucard wasn’t sure if he preferred it to the accusatory glare of Belmont and the calculating head tilt of Belnades. 

-All he knew was that he had to stop being woken up like this. 

“What is it?” He says unintelligibly, “I was sleeping.” 

“You were having a nightmare.” Sypha said, frowning, “I thought you’d want to be woken up.” 

Alucard scowls, “If I had someone wake me up every time I had a nightmare, Sypha, I would be getting even less sleep than I already do.” 

He really wasn’t the best person to talk to right now. 

Trevor rolls his eyes, “such a flair for the dramatics. Just get shitfaced and pass out like the rest of humanity.” 

“-Or!” Sypha interrupted his train of thought with a glare. “You could talk to us.” Her expression softened, “maybe it’ll help to get it out into the open.” 

Alucard sighed, “I couldn’t possibly.” 

As he stares at the pair before him he sees a matching emotion on both of their faces-

Pity.

_ Ugh. _

_ -Even Belmont? Really?  _

“Alucard-” Trevor says, his voice unsure. “We both…  _ careaboutyou.”  _

It’s uttered so quickly that it sounds more like a mumble than anything else... Classic Belmont. 

He scratches his neck awkwardly, “you know you can talk to both of us. I mean, preferably Sypha but-” 

The chair squeals in displeasure as it drags across the stone flooring. Alucard stood up and met their gazes. “I am a grown man and I am perfectly capable of falling asleep without any aid.” He brushes past the both of them, chancing a glance outside the window. The sun had set without him knowing. “If you’ll excuse me- I plan on retiring early to catch up on the sleep I lost babysitting Belmont the night previous.” 

He couldn’t- no  _ wouldn’t-  _ have anyone pitying him. That was downright incredulous. 

The pair of them just watched him go.

* * *

“You’re still worrying about him, aren’t you?” Trevor eyes Sypha suspiciously. After dinner, the two had gone back to their room without much fanfare- still recovering from the rough nights on the road. 

There was a bone-deep weariness within Trevor that just couldn’t be ailed by a decent nap. 

As much as he did enjoy a thrill or two- right now, a warm, comfortable bed was, perhaps, just as good.

-Even if it was in Dracula’s castle. 

Sypha had been going over a tome she’d unearthed from the library downstairs. Her bookish personality meant that Trevor didn’t bat an eyelash over her reading in bed...

-What did disturb him, however, was the fact that she’d been stuck on the same page for the last half hour. 

Sypha lets out a sigh, thumbing the ancient pages of the book with an absentminded nervousness. “Something… Strange is going on, Trevor.” 

“Oh, you think?” 

“Don’t be an ass.” 

Trevor frowned.

“I  _ know  _ something strange is going on. But there’s just… There’s something  _ else  _ as well.” 

“You think?” 

Sypha nods, a moment passes. 

Her expression changes from anxious to conflicted. As if she was debating whether or not to say more on the topic. 

Eventually, she decides to do what she does best; speak her mind. 

“I think… I think Alucard might be… interested in you. Romantically.” 

_ Oh. _

Now  _ that  _ wasn’t what Trevor had been expecting.

_ “...Fucking what now?”  _

“I’m serious, Trevor!” And she very much was. Sypha had seen the way Alucard interacted with Trevor. The teasing flits of flirtation, the feigned indignance… It made too much sense.

“He’s not sweet on me, Sypha,” Trevor argued, carding a frustrated hand through his hair. He’s displeased to find a stray piece of dinner left in it. “He’s interested in  _ you.”  _

“...No?”

“Yes!” 

“What?!” 

The pair of them stare at one another in confused, startled silence. It felt like there was static energy in the space between them.

Trevor tilts his head. “Do  _ you _ ... Fancy him?” It’s not so much an accusation as it was a question. He’d seen their rapport with one another. All the inside jokes and mutual respect. It wouldn’t be the most outlandish thought... 

Sypha’s eyes are razor sharp _. “Do you?”  _

He humours the retort. The implications behind it. Trevor pouts. “...This isn’t about me.” 

“But it is! You’re the one he’s in love with!” 

“I am  _ not!  _ It’s preposterous to even-” 

“Shut up!” 

“Oh real mature-” 

“No,  _ shut up,”  _ Sypha says, holding a hand up toward Trevor. 

The sound of thrashing discontent echoes throughout the walls of the castle. It travelled through the darkened hallways and rooms like a homing signal. 

If Trevor was just  _ slightly  _ more cynical- he would have presumed that Alucard had some poor peasants locked away in a torture chamber. 

But no, these yells sounded far too familiar for that. 

“He’s having another nightmare,” Sypha says, her eyebrows furrowing. 

The petty speculations the two shared in all wasted away within an instant. 

Sypha makes a move to stand. 

Trevor catches her wrist.

“Didn’t he say not to wake him?” He asks, grimacing at the sound regardless. It had been hard enough to endure the first time- but it felt even worse now. It felt like they were actively ignoring him. 

Sypha shrugs out of his hold. “I don’t care about that. He’s in trouble. Whether it’s against monsters or  _ himself,  _ we made an oath to get through things together. I’m not taking that sentiment lightly ever again.” 

She was right. She was always right. Bloody know-it-all. Trevor frowns. 

“Come on, are you with me or not?” She holds out a hand for him to take. Her eyes are ambitious and determined- shining with the fire that encaptured him in the first place. 

It had been dim for so long that it made the blaze all the more brilliant now. 

Trevor feels himself grumble out a curse as he takes her hand in his. 

“If he stabs me I’m going to be _ furious _ .” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [hmu on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pearliegrimm)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/pearIiegrimm)   
>  [aaaaand instagram ;)](https://www.instagram.com/pearliegrimm/)


	9. Chapter 9

Alucard hadn’t slept in his own chambers for quite some time now. Going back there after his little fit in front of Trevor and Sypha had been a decision borne from his distaste for pity. 

He hated the thought of either of them looking down on him for being emotionally  _ weak. _ For being afraid of the dark. 

It was ironic though, really. 

Alucard could wallow in his own regret quite easily but the moment someone else met it- he shrivelled like a rose in a furnace. 

This stubborn attitude of his would surely be the death of him.

It takes several hours after he retires to his room to maintain some semblance of rest.

But when he does, though, he is met with the usual, variety-laden bout of nightmares. 

Sometimes they were about his mother. Sometimes his father. Sometimes it was the both of them together. Sometimes it was Sumi and Taka…

_... _ And  _ sometimes  _ it was Trevor and Sypha. 

Those were the ones he loathed the most. 

Perhaps it was due to that crippling fear of the inevitable he had. The demons of the past were still his demons- but the ones of the future? They were something entirely different. Something unknown. Less certain. Less tangible. 

_ They always started the same. _

__

_ They take the place of Sumi and Taka. They lure him in with his own desperate, pathetic need for affection and then they watch the light drain out of his eyes with smiles on their faces. They watch him like they watch monsters they’ve conquered. Victorious. Smug. Prideful of themselves for ridding the world of yet another mindless beast.  _

_...Then they leave him again. _

_ Somehow, that’s always the part that hurts the most. _

_ -Because Alucard doesn’t really even care if his own blood is shed. He just doesn’t want to be left alone again. He doesn’t want to be without them. Again. Even in this alternate hellscape of his own mind... _

_ He thinks he loves them. Unfortunately.  _

_ He loves them and they love each other. Not him. _

_ Otherwise. His mind says. Otherwise, they would have stayed.  _

_ Trevor flicks Alucard’s entrails off of his whip, his lip curling in disgust.  _

_ Sypha doesn’t even spare him another glance. _

_ They walk off into dying rays of the sun, backs turned to him- in each other’s arms, covered in Alucard’s blood.  _

_ Alucard waits for his vision to blacken. Waits for death. But it never comes. He remains stationary. Still. Watching them leave without any way of making them stop. _

_ It loops. It happens again and again until he finally forces himself awake. The identical narrative over and over- each time with different little twists and turns but ultimately the same ending.  _

_ It’s the reason he doesn’t like sleeping in here. _

_ He doesn’t know if it’s real or fake when he wakes up.  _

Alucard’s eyes crack open and he is in his chambers once more. Yet again, he cannot tell whether this was his reality or not. The sensation of the pillow against his head feels real- but then again, the pain always did too.

He hears his door creak, signalling the beginning of another tiresome production of his own personal hell.

So this was another falsity…  __

“Alucard?” That was Sypha. 

Hmm. Perhaps his mind had done away with Sumi and Taka all together. A whole new level of trauma to unravel now. How thrilling. 

He doesn’t say a word. 

“...Why is he just watching us?” Trevor whispers beside her. He makes eye contact with Alucard but appears entirely apprehensive. 

This was different. 

This felt too real. 

This was going to hurt.

“Is he awake?” 

“...I am not sure.” 

Alucard couldn’t take it. This fake concern. It made his heart thunder in his chest. 

“Stay away.” He says, his voice hoarse- presumably from screaming this whole time. It was strange how dreams could replicate something like that. He detests the way it sounds like he is begging.  _ “Please.”  _

Trevor and Sypha stop in their tracks. 

…That was something that hadn’t happened before.

  
  
  


“Do you think he’s still dreaming?” Sypha asks in a whisper. Staring at the figure in the bed. Alucard’s eyes glowed golden in the darkness, like a beacon. She’d heard of people sleeping with their eyes open before- but not to this jarring level. 

“I think he thinks he is.” Trevor murmurs in reply. 

Sypha moves forward, but Trevor holds an arm out to stop her. 

“I think there’s a reason he always slept in the kitchen, Sypha.” His eyes guiltily dart downwards to the scuff marks on the floor. They could have been from any kind of guest from any time period at all- but Trevor thinks the abrasions were far… fresher. 

Sypha swallows, her expression deeply emotive. “Alucard? You’re not dreaming, okay? We’re here.” 

Alucard doesn’t reply. 

“We know you can hear us.” Trevor continues. “What can we do to get you to believe that we’re right here, in the flesh?”

_ “...Leave.”  _

They both frown at that. 

“Not happening, fuckface.”    
Sypha nudges him with her shoulder. “Do not call him ‘fuckface,’ Trevor, he is obviously in distress.” 

Trevor huffs. “Well, _ I’m _ in distress too! Alucard, if you’re going to sleep in a dress could you at least cross your legs.” 

“Trevor!” 

...Alucard blinks at them. 

_ “It is you.”  _

_ That  _ was what made him believe them? 

_ Of course it was. _

“It is us,” Sypha says warmly, placing a hand on her chest. “We heard you from our room and wanted to make sure that you were okay… Alucard, you don’t have to sleep here if it brings up bad memories.” 

Alucard sits up. His posturing tentative- like he still wasn’t completely sure of himself around them. “Then where do you propose I sleep then, Sypha? My dead parents’ room? The dungeon? My childhood bedroom?” 

Sypha chances a glance at Trevor. “...With us?”

The room goes cold at that. Alucard goes startlingly silent once more. There’s a tension in the room that could be cut with a sword. 

Trevor takes a cautious step forward and within an instant, Alucard jumps back to the furthest point away from either of them. 

If Alucard’s eyes had  _ glowed  _ before- they downright shone now. He’s pressed against the cobblestone wall with his teeth bared and his sleep clothes hanging loosely on his body- allowing the pair to see even more of the new scars littering his form.

That’s when it clicks.

Alucard typically wore charmed clothes that covered a majority of his body. Mostly because he had a stick up his ass- but also because it protected him ever so slightly more from attacks.

If he’d gotten those scars. He would have been- 

“...The people outside. The human skewers.” Trevor whispers, his mind putting the pieces together. “Did they…”   
Alucard hisses at him.

_ “Oh,”  _ Sypha says, realising her mistake. Trevor can see the guilt building on her face- settling in her chest. “Alucard I never-” 

“Silence!” He shouted. At that moment he looked exactly like Dracula. His fangs bared, his eyes shining with fury. “Leave! Get out! Do not make me say it again!” 

Sypha and Trevor do not move a muscle. For they knew that if they did as they were told, they would never see the Alucard they knew and…  _ loved  _ again.

Sypha was a Speaker who recorded their history, and Trevor was a Belmont that wasn’t dead. They were rebels to their very nature. They would not listen to Alucard. 

“...Alucard? Do you remember when we were hunting for night creatures just outside of Veros and Trevor thought he’d caught one but it turned out he’d just stabbed a scarecrow?” Sypha says carefully. She doesn’t move from her position. 

“Hey,” Trevor said, pouting. “It was a giant fucking scarecrow.” 

Sypha ignores him, “and do you remember when we found the huge stash of books in the Belmont hold  _ just  _ about different monsters’ sexual acts? And you’d read it to both of us like a bedtime story when we all got too tired to research anymore?” 

Alucard’s eye twitches. 

“We left you, Alucard- but doing so was a mistake. If you need me to tell you that every single day, I will. That’s how much I believe it so... And you know how much I loathe to admit I am wrong.” Sypha holds out her hand. “Let us help you. Let us atone for our mistake.” 

Alucard remains still, but his posture visibly relaxes. 

Trevor sighs. It was peculiar that Alucard could turn into a wolf but acted so much more like a cat. Skittish. Moody. Unforgiving. 

He didn’t think they could lure him out with fresh salmon, though.

He would have to do something else.

Trevor coughs. “We both… love you, Alucard.” The words come out awkward and forced- but nevertheless genuine. 

“Yes,” Alucard says bitterly. “As a companion. An unneeded wheel on your wagon.” 

“No,” Sypha replied firmly. “After everything we’ve seen. Everything we’ve done... “ She looks toward Trevor. “Would it be so peculiar that our hearts are open for another?” 

Alucard tilts his head, inquisitive- tentative. “What do you mean by that?” 

“We mean…” Trevor clears his throat- he feels Sypha’s hand grab his. He finds the words float to him- as if he were in a dream. “That something was missing between us when we left the castle that day…” He scratches the back of his head. “We’ve always worked best as a threesome, no?” 

Sypha elbows him in the side again, but it is far more lighthearted this time. “We  _ truly  _ love you, Alucard. In the same way that we love each other. We were just too lost to find the answer to our troubles back then.”

It is then that Trevor remembers. Something that his drunken haze had forgotten. The words Alucard had spoken the night previous- when they’d both been too inebriated to care. 

_ “You!” Trevor had declared, “are the stuffing that makes us whole. Without you, we’re just a poorly sewn, person-shaped sack with no opening. There cannot be one without the other two. That’s what I think we realised when we left.”  _

_ In the silence that follows after, he recalled the words Alucard spoke.  _

_ “That's what I think I realised when I stayed.”  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [hmu on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pearliegrimm)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/pearIiegrimm)   
>  [aaaaand instagram ;)](https://www.instagram.com/pearliegrimm/)


	10. Chapter 10

Alucard spends the rest of the night on the floor in their chambers. 

Try as they did, Sypha and Trevor couldn’t manage to coax him up to the bed with them. They’d even offered to sleep on the floor instead- but he’d outrightly refused.

This would have to be completely on his terms. His way. His pace. 

It was a step in the right direction- but it couldn’t have been a comfortable one for Alucard. 

After he’d eventually regained some semblance of his own self back that night, he hadn’t spoken much to either of them. He’d essentially just curled up at the foot of their bed like a cat and stayed there until morning... 

Trevor was, frankly, at a bit of a loss on what to do. He was- and never would be a ‘feelings’ person- nor did he believe that words spoke louder than actions... 

But that seemed to be the only thing that could remedy this… this obvious rift between the three of them. 

Now that the surmisation of their dreaded feelings were out, floating above their heads like a cloud of confusion- it seemed that all that could be done was talk and _ feel.  _

...Ugh. 

Trevor’s eyes open before his brain truly wanted to wake up. 

After the ordeal during the night- he’d hoped the sun would be a bit higher in the sky before he greeted another dreaded day.

Alas, God had it in for him once more- and the hunter didn’t necessarily blame him. The big guy was practically out of a job with Trevor around. Heh. 

The soft sounds of Sypha snoring and the subtle shifting below the bed frame indicates to him that he is the only one up at this point. Trevor didn’t know whether to count his blessings or his faults. He just knew that he didn’t want to lie here for much longer. 

He didn’t want to _ think _ for much longer either. 

He wanted to do something. He wanted to move. He needed to alleviate some of this weird tension built up from within him. 

Trevor rises from his position and takes note of his other two companions. 

Avoiding the elephant (or vampire) in the room was all too easy when Sypha slept like the dead and Alucard technically was. 

-Well… half dead at least? 

_ He didn’t want to ask...  _

Trevor quite easily manages to evacuate the area without rousing either of them. 

* * *

Cooking was one of many life skills that Trevor had neglected to learn when he was younger.

It wasn’t because he was some absolute fucking nob that thought it was women’s work- no, it was because  _ he’d had servants that had done it for him…  _

...And then he hadn’t. 

After that, he’d had more pressing issues to concern himself with-  _ like not being fucking killed.  _

So whenever he had food, he threw it on fire and made sure it wouldn’t poison him before he bit into it. He didn’t care about taste. 

-And when he  _ had _ money he spent it on ale instead because it kept him warmer and it shut his mind up. 

Thus, when he rumbles into the kitchen with a bedhead and a yawn- he finds himself a little at odds with what he’s about to do. 

There are dried plants in glass casings all lined up on a small wooden shelf before him- labelled neatly with scrawling handwriting.  _ Cinnamon, Ginger, Clove _ … Trevor raises his eyebrows. Alucard had accrued quite a collection. Many of these spices were near impossible to get within Wallachia... 

...Or had it been his mother who had started all of this? Had she owned a herb garden when she was still alive? 

It made sense since she was a doctor… But had Dracula really allowed for that in his castle? 

Trevor shook away his speculations. Thinking was the thing he was trying to get away from, after all...

He eyes a small pile of parchment resting on the side of the countertop. Momentarily, he thinks he ought to leave it alone... 

_ But if it was really something so personal and secretive, would it be left out in the open like this?  _

The pages are all sewn lightly together with yarn to keep them separating from one another, and they are all different shapes and colours- indicating they were written at different increments of time. They’re stiff to the touch and slightly yellowed. They were old. Not  _ super  _ old- but older than if Alucard were to have written them within his stay. 

As Trevor looks closer, he sees the handwriting matches that of the labels on the glass bottles.  _ So this was Alucard’s mother’s as well?  _

He squinted at the lettering, trying to make out the words. Trevor wasn’t the greatest at reading at the best of times but  _ cursive  _ was a new level of hell entirely- 

...Oh.

It was a small book of recipes, it seemed. 

Alucard’s mother must have written it a while ago. He was probably following off of it to make his food while he and Sypha were gone. 

Trevor frowns. 

At least this was a start. A sad one. But one nevertheless. 

* * *

The little book of recipes makes Trevor mildly emotional and he doesn’t quite know why. 

The pages are filled with shoehorned notes and loving adjustments to make them  _ just  _ right. There are little comments underneath some of the ingredients like,  _ ‘leave Anchovies out on the side for Adrian,’  _ and  _ ‘don’t forget to make the spice a bit milder or Adrian will start sneezing.’ _

It’s so horrifically endearing that it chokes Trevor up. 

It’s downright  _ humiliating.  _

In the end, he decides that a modest breakfast of bread and cheese would be good enough for the three of them. 

Trevor simply did not want to stand around a stream looking for herring at this hour. 

_...Besides, he’d always kind of loathed eating fish so early in the morning.  _

He finds some kind of bread dough recipe in the book and tries to follow it as best as he can. It lies in the back of all the parchment pieces- so Trevor assumes it is both the oldest- and the most tried and true. 

As he goes to season it, though, he leaves out a little bit of the spice almost unconsciously. 

In the end, Trevor manages to make a somewhat decent loaf of bread dough- to go with the cheese that Sypha and he had brought with them before they’d arrived at the castle. It is placed in the oven with pride a dozen or so minutes before Sypha and Alucard amble their way down to his location. 

“It smells delicious in here,” Sypha says, her eyes open wide with surprise. “Did you kidnap a baker?” 

Trevor rolls his eyes at her. “No.” He says, crossing his arms. “ _I_ am making bread.” 

Alucard raises his eyebrows but remains silent. 

Sypha moves in closer, inspecting the oven with a dainty hand on her chin. “I did not know you could cook....” 

Trevor pouts at the pair of them. 

“Ye of little faith...Get ready to eat your words  _ and  _ my delicious food. Sit the fuck down.” 

* * *

Breakfast is a successful affair. 

The bread is delicious. 

“...I am quite impressed, Belmont,” Alucard tells him, delicately slicing another piece off the (admittedly quite misshapen,) loaf in front of the three of them. “This is quite edible.” It’s the first thing he’s said all morning. 

Backhanded compliment regardless, it fills Trevor with an embarrassing sense of relief. 

“Yeah, this is really good!” Sypha says, her mouth full. 

Trevor preens, feeling far too proud of himself... 

Nevertheless, he finds his eyes wandering back to the recipe book.

“I must admit… I do have your mother to thank, Alucard.” 

Alucard tilts his head. “What do you mean?” 

Trevor gestures to the pile of parchment on the counter. “I found that in the corner and followed it to the letter. It worked out great.” 

Alucard has the  _ strangest _ expression on his face now. He looks to where Trevor is gesturing before he lets out the smallest, most minuscule _ laugh. _ “My mother was awful at cooking.” He says, with all the fondness in the world. 

All of the ice-cold stiffness within him from before had begun to thaw. It was nice.

Trevor furrows his brows, “but the recipes she wrote all seemed so thorough and  _ detailed…”  _

“They’re not her recipes, Belmont,” Alucard speaks, a tinge of bittersweetness on his lips now. It’s only then that Trevor understands. ”...They’re my father’s.”

_ “Oh,”  _ Trevor says inarticulately. He looks down at the loaf of bread- now half-eaten. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the concept of Dracula doing something so domestic… so  _ sweet.  _

“But vampires only require blood for sustenance?” Sypha says, her head tilting in question. She seems entirely unphased by the loaf’s origins and uses the other pair’s inaction as an excuse to eat more of it.

“Yes.” Alucard confirmed, ‘but he liked to cook for my mother and I. He said it was another science that he wanted to master… I think it was just because mother inflated his ego to the size of the castle every time he did.” 

There was something awfully human about that. Not even  _ just  _ human- it was  _ endearing.  _ Trevor quite honestly didn’t want to believe his own mind when he thought that.

“This kitchen is, perhaps, the only room in this whole castle that nothing bad has ever happened within. I think that is why I thought I would be able to keep the nightmares at bay here.”

“Alucard-”

“I know now that that is not the case.” He said bitterly. “I do apologise for my actions the night previous. I was not myself. Not truly.” He winces- that pained expression rising to his face once more. “I know that perhaps you were only trying to coax me off of my hysteria, but what you said-” 

-Oh for fuck’s sake. 

Trevor was done with this whole routine.

He rises from his seat and, with all the speed and grace of a seasoned hunter, leans over the table- grabs Alucard by the collar and kisses him on the lips. 

It’s strange. Kissing someone that isn’t Sypha after all this time. It isn’t bad though. It’s just a different kind of good. 

He can taste the different spices he’d put in the bread on the other’s lips. 

Alucard stiffens for just the slightest of seconds before Trevor feels a hand on the nape of his neck. Keeping him in place. His fingers are far warmer than he could have imagined, heated by the summer sunlight.

The tension eases from Trevor’s body as he realises that this action had, in fact, spoken louder than words.

* * *

Things slowly get better after that. 

Like with every wound, it took time to heal. But now that Alucard was willing to let them help treat it- things had made a turn for the better. 

They stay in the castle- all three of them together. They clean each and every room up- wiping away the gory details of the past- and the melancholy memories of Alucard’s childhood. It’s a welcome yet  _ dull  _ catharsis for Alucard... And just straight up  _ dull  _ for Trevor- but with the trio working together once more- it was bearable. It was good. 

Alucard finally joins them in bed the night before they conquer his childhood room with their brooms. Sypha and Trevor don’t say a word about it for fear of scaring him off. 

...But something about it had just felt right. The moment the three of them, dead tired from all the work they’d done- scuttled under the covers to get warm. 

It was like the missing piece of the puzzle. 

Alucard, for the first time in a very long time- has the bliss of a dreamless slumber. 

It’s so entirely incomprehensible to him that when he sees the rays of morning poking at his eyes- he starts crying. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a full night’s sleep and it was  _ glorious.  _

He cleans with an insurmountable  _ vigour  _ that day. 

It wasn’t perfect. It never would be. 

Each and every one of them had scars from the past that wouldn’t heal. It came with their profession, their lifestyle. 

They knew that their work wasn’t done. Not here. Not anywhere. 

But there was still one more thing that Trevor thought important to do before they moved on.

Alucard, Sypha and Trevor all stand out the front of the castle. Looking upon the two corpses on stakes outside. Sumi and Taka. 

Alucard had recounted the events that led up to their deaths with little detail or fanfare. Trevor could tell he didn’t regret what had happened- but he did think that in some sick, twisted way- Alucard may have occasionally missed his two assailants. 

Well, missed what he thought they were- at the very least.

“I say we replace these with some lovely rose bushes, what say you, Alucard?” Sypha suggests, her hands clasped in enthusiasm. She had very much enjoyed making the castle over from head to toe. She’d never had a home growing up, she was always on the road with the rest of her clan... But now that she had the opportunity to boss Alucard and Trevor around over the positioning of candelabras and bookshelves- she seemed like a natural. 

“Hmm.” Alucard makes an affirmative noise, still staring straight ahead at the pair upon the stakes. There are cogs turning in his mind. “I wish to cremate them.” He says, his golden eyes set with determination. 

Trevor raises his eyebrows, “that seems too… honourable, doesn’t it?” 

Alucard shakes his head. “They were victims of circumstance. Though they betrayed my kindness, I know now that I still have much to learn about humanity. I needn’t write their whole species off because these two were traitorous bastards.” 

Trevor frowns. He hadn’t expected that. “When we first got here... You told us you thought your father was right… What made you change your mind?” 

Alucard rolls his eyes. “You two did, of course. You refused to leave my side because you knew I was in peril within myself. You atoned for your previous actions tenfold. You gained my trust all over again because you did not want me to feel unsafe between you as I slept… These two before you,” he gestures to Sumi and Taka- or what was left of them anyway. “They were just what I thought I could never have with you. They were dupes, shallow replacements. What they did was wrong. But in denying my own feelings- I did not see the signs.” 

A silence passes through the three of them like a welcome summer breeze. 

And then Trevor decides to ruin it. 

“You’re not gonna put  _ us  _ on skewers though, are you?” 

“Only if you keep hogging the covers.” 

“...Fuck.” 

* * *

Trevor Belmont could honestly say that he hadn’t been to all that many burials. 

He was usually the one that inflicted the aforementioned  _ death.. _ . 

Not to mention demons didn’t usually get funerals. 

Even his family hadn’t gotten one. There had been nothing left of them to bury. The unwillingly sober nights he spent alone with his thoughts served as their funeral service.

Looking at the fire in front of him now, he can’t help but think of them. How they’d suffered. How he’d been the only one to make it out alive. How it should have been his sisters, or his parents- or someone else more useful than him.

But then he looks to his side, at Alucard- at Sypha. They bring him back to the present. They bring him back to reality. 

He’d been allowed to live for a reason. And he thinks his reasons are right beside him. 

Trevor grabs each of their hands as they watch the fire burn, the heat of the blaze nearing on unpleasant. 

“...You should probably chuck those creepy fucking dolls of us in here too, Alucard.”

“The  _ what!?”  _ Sypha exclaims. 

“I think I’d rather I keep the doll of you than the one in front of me, Belmont.” 

Sypha puts a hand on her cheek.“You made dolls of us?!” 

“...Perhaps.” 

In the end, Trevor knew that it would be alright. They were living in crazy- nay,  _ batshit insane  _ times, but they would be alright. For there was never any change in complacency, and never any new love in remaining silent. 

It would be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @netflix hire me pls
> 
> thank you all for reading! please let me know what your fave parts were!  
> but don't tell me which parts you didn't like bc ill cry
> 
> i wrote this bc i was sad abt season 3   
> and i wrote [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16495799/chapters/38633750) back when i was sad about season 2   
> if you see me here again after season 4 mind ya business

**Author's Note:**

> [hmu on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pearliegrimm)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/pearIiegrimm)   
>  [aaaaand instagram ;)](https://www.instagram.com/pearliegrimm/)


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